G'day all,
I wanted to share a quick experience running Bazzite on a gaming laptop (i7-9750H), likely relevant to Intel 8th gen and newer laptop CPUs.
🔍 The issue
Out of the box, Bazzite seems to favour aggressive CPU boosting (which makes sense for performance), but on laptops this can cause:
- CPU boosting to max turbo (4.0–4.3 GHz range)
- Temps hitting 95–100°C under load
- Thermal throttling
- Inconsistent performance (FPS drops/stutter)
This is different from Windows’ default “balanced” behaviour, which tends to manage boost more conservatively.
🧠 What’s happening
On a desktop, this behaviour is fine (and ideal).
On a laptop, however:
- Cooling is limited
- Sustained turbo = heat saturation
- Performance becomes worse over time due to throttling
So “max performance” actually turns into less stable performance.
✅ My workaround (what fixed it)
I manually tuned the system:
-
Applied a small CPU undervolt (where supported)
-
Capped max CPU frequency:
sudo cpupower frequency-set -u 3.3GHz
-
Made it persistent with a systemd service:
Create the service:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/cpufreq-limit.service
Add:
[Unit]
Description=CPU Frequency Limit
After=multi-user.target
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cpupower frequency-set -u 3.3GHz
RemainAfterExit=true
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and exit (Ctrl + O, Enter, then Ctrl + X).
Enable it:
sudo systemctl daemon-reexec
sudo systemctl enable cpufreq-limit.service
Reboot to apply.
📊 Results
Before:
- Temps: 95–100°C
- FPS: inconsistent (40–50, drops under load)
After:
- Temps: ~85–95°C
- FPS: more stable (often higher, ~60 at times)
- Less fan noise and throttling
💡 Suggestion (for Bazzite)
It might be worth considering a laptop-aware default or install option, for example:
-
Device type selection:
-
Or performance modes:
- Performance (current behaviour)
- Balanced (reduced boost / saner thermals)
Even something simple like:
- Slightly less aggressive boost behaviour on laptops
- Or a documented “recommended laptop tuning” profile
👍 Why this matters
A lot of users:
- Won’t know how to tune CPU behaviour
- Will just experience:
- High temps
- Loud fans
- Worse performance than expected
A small default adjustment or guidance could:
- Improve first impressions
- Reduce thermal issues
- Actually increase sustained performance on laptops
🧠 Final note
This isn’t a complaint—Bazzite is great overall.
Just sharing a real-world case where a small tweak made a big difference.
Would be great to hear if this helps others or if anyone has found similar improvements.
Happy to hear thoughts or if there’s a better built-in way to handle this.
Cheers
G'day all,
I wanted to share a quick experience running Bazzite on a gaming laptop (i7-9750H), likely relevant to Intel 8th gen and newer laptop CPUs.
🔍 The issue
Out of the box, Bazzite seems to favour aggressive CPU boosting (which makes sense for performance), but on laptops this can cause:
This is different from Windows’ default “balanced” behaviour, which tends to manage boost more conservatively.
🧠 What’s happening
On a desktop, this behaviour is fine (and ideal).
On a laptop, however:
So “max performance” actually turns into less stable performance.
✅ My workaround (what fixed it)
I manually tuned the system:
Applied a small CPU undervolt (where supported)
Capped max CPU frequency:
sudo cpupower frequency-set -u 3.3GHz
Made it persistent with a systemd service:
Create the service:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/cpufreq-limit.service
Add:
[Unit]
Description=CPU Frequency Limit
After=multi-user.target
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cpupower frequency-set -u 3.3GHz
RemainAfterExit=true
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and exit (Ctrl + O, Enter, then Ctrl + X).
Enable it:
sudo systemctl daemon-reexec
sudo systemctl enable cpufreq-limit.service
Reboot to apply.
📊 Results
Before:
After:
💡 Suggestion (for Bazzite)
It might be worth considering a laptop-aware default or install option, for example:
Device type selection:
Or performance modes:
Even something simple like:
👍 Why this matters
A lot of users:
A small default adjustment or guidance could:
🧠 Final note
This isn’t a complaint—Bazzite is great overall.
Just sharing a real-world case where a small tweak made a big difference.
Would be great to hear if this helps others or if anyone has found similar improvements.
Happy to hear thoughts or if there’s a better built-in way to handle this.
Cheers